Monday, July 18, 2016

Trump's voters all have one thing in common

by digby

This is a good piece by Nate Cohn in the NY Times about the current polling and what it means. He explains how the cumulative info shows Clinton with a consistent lead and explains why and how it breaks down. This is it in a nutshell:

The polls tell a very clear story about the country’s divisions in an era of sweeping economic and demographic shifts. For white voters with a college degree and nonwhite voters, the 2016 presidential election must look and feel like a landslide. Mr. Trump trails by as large or larger margins among these voters as John McCain did in 2008.

But the story is very different for white voters without a college degree, who remain a very large bloc of voters in the electorate. Here, Mrs. Clinton is doing far worse than President Obama last time. On balance, these two shifts have canceled out — leaving Mrs. Clinton ahead by roughly the same margin as Mr. Obama was in pre-election polls from 2012.

These big demographic divides have added confusion to the polls in battleground states. Those states have such different demographic characteristics that Mrs. Clinton has seemed to fare very well in some states while struggling in others.

On balance, Mrs. Clinton is excelling in diverse and well-educated states like Virginia, Colorado and even North Carolina. But she is struggling to match Mr. Obama in less educated or less diverse places in the Midwest and Northeast, like Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, or even Maine’s Second Congressional District. Yet Mrs. Clinton appears to be tied or ahead even in these states. The combination gives her a strong advantage in the Electoral College.

Polls right now aren't very predictive of anything so it all had to be taken with a grain of salt. But as Cohn explains once the conventions are done and the expected bounces fade (or don't) we will have an idea of where we stand. Right now we should all just take a deep breath.